Wednesday, December 19, 2007

Whether its a case of making a virtue out of necessity, or more about contrived atmospherics, Brian Grainger's debut solo album is a beguiling collection of murky, crackling home recorded ambient guitar pieces. The record hums with a fuzzy low level energy, offsetting the crystalline clarity of the music with a pleasing sense of spontaneous imperfection. Grainger works through various drone based and tonal scenarios but he also favours reverb-heavy chiming guitar runs and bent distorted notes. The gritty patina of distortion and fuzz is never over intrusive and as on the hypnotic centrepiece "A Soft White Chamber", often positively contributes to Grainger's dreamlike compositions.

Brian Grainger (aka Milieu, Coppice Halifax, Teenager, Vhom, and Pink Space, and Second Sun Recordings co-manager) weighs in with Eight Thousander, a debut solo collection of blissed-out soundscapes. Apparently, the material was completely improvised on guitar and organ without any overdubs, though the instruments sometimes are altered so dramatically they verge on unrecognizable. In “Whitecaps,” for example, whistling tones drift like phantoms over a haze of washes, and elsewhere titles like “Drowned” and “Oceanic” help tell the story of a project that's often about celestial drift, ghostly reverberance, and softly shuddering guitars. The instrument's delicate meander is almost smothered in crackle and haze during the thirteen-minute “A Soft White Chamber” and retiring “Retuned Minor” while its twang and strum dominate the bucolic folk reverie “Lost in the Woods.” Two untitled pieces close the album, the first an electrical drone and the other a relatively more conventional exercise in haunted atmospherics. The album as a whole puts guitar front and center, whether it's instantly recognizable or not, and the album should prove rewarding to fans of atmospheric, axe-oriented soundscaping.

A set of eight incredibly stripped-down ambient pieces recorded exclusively with guitar and organ, Eight Thousander is the debut release from artists Brian Grainger (Milieu, Free Festival). An entirely improvised release with no overdubs, this sparse, droning recording is lo-fi all the way and flickers with the sort of slowly-evolving feel that one might expect given the out-of-focus dusky photos gracing the album artwork. Although it's in a completely different genre musically, Grainger makes use of the same warm, fuzzy sonics that groups like Bibio and others have churned out. It's lo-fi all the way, with sparse melodies that roll under grainy washes of sometimes overdriven drones. The first three tracks act as a triptych of sorts, with "Drowned," "Whitecaps," and "Oceanic" all drifting through a combined eleven minutes of muted whale-call and distant lighthouse-style sweeps. "Above The Sky" follows, and some murky guitar chords shift the feel a bit, shattering the placid surface with dark ripples. From there, it's back to a longer, more static piece in "A Soft White Chamber," before a track like "Wind Calmly Bands Our Hair" calls to mind the lovely work of Brian Eno with its reflective, but almost algorithmic progressions and warm tones. In addition to the eight listed tracks, there are a couple hidden bonus droners that push the total running length of the release up to nearly fifty five minutes in length. Although it has a somewhat unique aesthetic, there are only a couple places on Eight Thousander that really push outside the box.

Alan Weisman’s recent book The World Without Us speculates on the Earth’s post-human development. Were it not a contradiction of sorts, Brian Grainger’s desolate guitar improvisations would provide an ideal soundtrack for this vision. His approach culls aspects of Stars of the Lid’s oceanic wash, Flying Saucer Attack’s grainy panorama and especially Roy Montgomery’s talent for describing space through sound. The opening trio of pieces captures a mood of twilight weariness; the guitar’s muted figures nested in the amp’s unmasked electric hiss. “Above the Sky” breaks free of the pregnant drone into a tremolo wide enough to bend at the edges. The only slight misstep comes on “Lost in the Woods,” a track that fetishizes the delay and creates a miasma of overlapping notes that disrupts the albums overall arc. Grainger’s unvarnished, no overdub strategy gives the work a vital feel despite its overall coolness and restraint.

Peculiar. Very peculiar. This, the first solo release from Brian Grainger, is an ambient/atmospheric/instrumental release that can really alter your consciousness. The eight tracks on this album are improvisational compositions recorded using only a guitar and an organ...and there are no overdubs. But what is most intriguing about this album...is that the sounds in these songs sound nothing like a guitar or an organ. Grainger saturated the sounds coming from his instruments to the point where they are truly unrecognizable. His subtle drones are foreign and strangely calming. It's almost as if you are deep, deep, deep in a cave and you can hear something in the distance that doesn't sound quite like music...perhaps echoes from the ocean or the wind. Very slow and subdued, these pieces are bound to please anyone who ever loved Brian Eno's early ambient releases. If you want to create a weird mood in your living environment, this one will surely do it. Ahhhhhhh............

I recently bought the soundtrack to 2001: A Space Odyssey. Strange, really, that I'd not considered doing so until recently, because it's one of my favorite films of all time. Every time I watch it--and I do so a lot, mind you--it still leaves me a bit puzzled, if not pensive. But Kubrick's decision to make the soundtrack a mixture of modern composers and classical compositions proved quite astute. Hell, I'll even be honest enough to say that the soundtrack scares me a bit.

I bring this up simply because I'm hearing a lot of that soundtrack on VCV’s 3753 Cruithne. The work of Brian Grainger and David Tagg, these nine compositions are deep, heavy, and dark; they embody space, literally. The songs are slow, brooding, and about as vast and meandering as outer space. Like the 2001 soundtrack, these songs haunt you as they wonderfully soundtrack a disturbing journey to Jupiter. In fact, I made a playlist containing a few of these songs and a few of Grygori Ligeti's compositions, and I never noticed when one switched to the other. When I shared a song with a friend of mine, he said, "Oh, by the way, I just sold some Stars of the Lid records on eBay." Yes, VCV follow in SOTL's footsteps, too; unlike other drone artists who have imitated the Texas duo, the duo of VCV seem to understand "understated" in the same way.

3753 Cruithne is an excellent debut. I don't know if VCV is a one-off; let us hope not. If it is, then let us praise it as a harbinger of greater things to come.

If you want more, though, Brian Grainger has also released a solo record. Entitled Eight Thousander, the album contains songs not unlike VCV's epic, calm space rock, but Grainger also explores more terrestrial sounds, and he incorporates piano throughout, producing gentle sounds that remind me of Harold Budd. It's beautiful and not as ominous as VCV's style, and it is a relaxing instrumental trip.

Tuesday, November 20, 2007

Gabriel has released an album called Sum Of Parts at the ever-awesome Rope Swing Cities label, and it features a remix I did as Coppice Halifax about a year ago for a song called "Sunrise Reef". Track53 also contributed a very nice remix, so go grab it for free from RSC!

Another remix I did about a year ago has been formally released - my "Dub Forecast" version of Saturday Index's song "Partly Cloudy". This track was already previously featured on the Wasted Magic In The Sound remix compilation, also released at Archaic Horizon, because back then it was still previously unreleased. Nonetheless, here it is again, in it's proper place.

A brand new Coppice Halifax 3" single is now available! Titled Honeysoil, the 3" features 24 minutes of new music in the form of two tracks - "Honey", a textural ambient-techno piece not unlike something from Cylob's Cylobian Sunset album (that I adore so much), and a 19-minute live version of "Soil" from the upcoming self-titled Coppice Halifax full-length.

For the grand occasion of Metanoia Media's 50th release, I've been asked to contribute to a compilation not once, but twice! Featured with Dissolved, BRTLMN, Quosp, Pisgah, Bazaar and others are two new tracks of mine - the first being "Aeroline", a track from the Milieu vaults, dating back to the Night Currentssessions, and the second being "Quartnie", a brand new Coppice Halifax track that sounds nice and warm and crusty the way it should!

It's been quite a good time working with Metanoia since their launch in 2004, so please be invited to have some cake, put your party hat on and celebrate with us with this free compilation!

The long-rumored Milieu remix album is finally here at last: EED is excited to announce Our Blue Remixes, a very special collection of 12 remixed songs from Milieu's Our Blue Rainbow album. For the occasion, Brian has called in favors from several talented friends to bring their own unique treatments to the traditional Milieu sound.

EOD kicks it off with a sexy rework of "Auroral", bringing steady beats and luscious SH-101 melodies together with his crisp production. "Mellow U" gets a complete free-jazz makeover courtesy of Brian Ellis, and Wisp breaks out some funky breaks and big bass on an epic version of "Kieran Moth". From there we are plunged into Ourson's murky swamp treatment of "My Friend The Dawn", Am-Boy's neon-glowing summertime LSD trip "Days Behind", and Photophob's playful dance take on "Tiffany Lane". Brian himself steps into the lineup, turning out a textural ambient-techno version of "Alvin Sparks" under his Coppice Halifax moniker, then Eluder takes over for a few minutes with an insectoid mix of "Blue Rainbow". Finally, the drugs seem to kick in with David Tagg's lush and homesick "Starview" remix, bringing to mind images of a humid summer night in the south, off a backwoods dirt road, missing someone you love. Dissolved gracefully picks up where David ends, building alien melodies and loops from "For Katie Asleep On The Bus", giving way to a beautiful pastoral remix of "Glasshill", sounding pretty and pink as only Mrs. Jynx can. Finally, Adam Pacione takes the honor of closing this varied compilation with a sleepy 12-minute meditation on "Rainy Daylight", crumbling the original song into nothing more than a lonesome, whispery drone.

We at EED have never heard a better remix record, and we think you might agree once you give this one a spin. Limited to exactly 100 copies with very psychedelic artwork done by David and Brian, preorder it today!

The nice folks over at the Cold Room netlabel recently asked me for a song to include on their brand new Drifting Skywards 3 compilation, and that song ended up being "Airbus", which is kind of a slow, ambient techno Milieu track with pianos and synths over a steady beat and wet bass. The song is a renovated piece that was originally a demo for my Tandem Series 5 split with Env(itre) at Boltfish.

DS3 is a free download and includes brand new music by Bauri, Flotel, Zainetica, Crisopa and several others! Go check it out!

Wednesday, November 7, 2007

That's right, kids! Just what you had nightmares about - a new Pink Space album!

Odds 'N' Clods is a retrospective compilation of thirty-five outtakes, remixes, orphaned tracks, rejects and flat out crappy songs. Remastered and shined-up so that you're fooled into thinking it's a proper album, complete with disgusting new artwork by Jack Rabbit. Hey! It's better than a video!

You can download it for free from thee good Captain Buckhorn, because let's face it - we wouldn't pay for music like this and neither would you.CLICKETY CLACKKK

Second in the Installation series, Brian Grainger visits uncomfortably loud territory on Silver Surfaces Washed White. Thick masses of white noise and analog feedback form long, monochromatic clusters of crumbling sound. Initially sourced from cassettes of various abstract pieces Brian recorded for the Sun-Day boxset, these are the remnants of a completely corrosive musical process that is as fascinating as it is unsettling. Best when played at high volume! Limited to 50 copies.

Brian Grainger returns from an overseas performance in Germany with the newest addition to the 21MG Series, Chrominance. A buzzing, vibrating wall of feedback, drowned under slabs of subtly pitch shifting delays. What could be an incidental soundtrack to a submarine visiting underwater cathedrals, Chrominance is yet another 21 minute fuzzed-sidetrack for your day.

Sunday, November 4, 2007

The show went extremely well! I had some RAM issues with the laptop and a couple files got corrupted somehow, so aside from a few glitches that messed up 2 tracks, the set sounded great! A soundboard recording does exist, but I'm mastering it currently. The system the club had sounded excellent, and it really made the Milieu stuff sound HUGE with all the bass and breaks!

The rest of the performers were all great, my personal favorites being Yimino (the two nicest guys ever), Wouter Van Veldhoven, Erik Skodvin (who performed as Svarte Greiner), Yagya from Iceland, Philip Jeck and Macc from the UK who played an intense drum and bass set on an actual drumkit! CDs were traded, conversations were many and now it's safe to say alot of us will be trying to do a few creative things together now that we've all met. We also couldn't have done it without help from Dina, Andreas and Andy, who were some of the coolest people to have around!

The Yimino boys were kind enough to film three songs from my liveset, which you can watch at Youtube here:

"Slowfade High Five" from In Hills Made Of Clouds &"Alice Flagg" from New Drugs

"Plume Train" from New Drugs

As you might expect, while we were there, we ate alot of German food, which surprisingly enough was very similar to American food here in the south. Alot of meats, potatoes, gravies, cheese and pasta. Great stuff! I really could live there just for the food.

And another word about Yimino - we have so much in common musically and so I really think everyone who enjoys beat-based Milieu stuff would get something good out of their work too. I highly recommend checking them out at http://myspace.com/yiminomusic

Again, thank you SO much to everyone who donated - you will all receive something special in your mailboxes in the coming weeks. It may take a while as I'm waiting on a few things to happen before I can mail anything to you, but rest assured you will get something!

Sunday, October 14, 2007

As you may or may not know, I'm scheduled to perform as Milieu at this year's Lab30 electronic music conference. I'll be flying to Augsburg, Germany on Tuesday, October 23rd, and will not fly home until Monday, October 29th. Thanks to the very kind folks organizing Lab30, my flight arrangements and hotel are taken care of for the duration of my visit, however, I could definitely use any financial help I can get to cover food, transportation, and any other incurred expenses like boarding my dog and parking our car at the Charlotte airport for a week! This show will be very special, and it's a big honor to be able to perform alongside such talented folks as Svarte Greiner, Kettel, Secede, Yagya and Yimino.

If you'd like to pass on any support, it's more than appreciated, and to make it up to you, I promise that once I return from Germany, I'll send anyone who donates $5.00 USD or more something very special and super-exclusive.

Thanks for reading this, and even if you can't help me with any cash, just wish me luck - that helps too!

Monday, October 1, 2007

It's the first of October, and that means the Milieu shop has once again been updated to feature 2 brand new releases. Here they are:

Milieu - Three Space SongsMML008$5.00

This is a 3" CD-R that consists of, you guessed it, three space songs. These were all recorded earlier this year, during the New Drugs sessions, but were intended for release toward the end of the year because they're a completely new direction for Milieu music. The breaks and basslines and organ sounds are all still there, only now, the main melodies and chord progressions of the songs are played entirely on guitars. Probably the most organic and live sounding Milieu release yet, this is exactly what you can expect Milieu records to start sounding like next year.

This record was actually previously Sun-Day 10. However, as the refining process sometimes goes with bigger projects, I decided to pull it from the set and make it it's own record instead. Why, you ask? Well, the reason being not because I don't like it, but that it contains speech throughout most of it's duration and I realized how much it really didn't work with the rest of Sun-Day. Musically it's composed of 4 longform organ and guitar drones, augmented by the sound of a Swami calmly leading you through a guided meditation called the "Divine Light Invocation", slightly manipulated of course. I found these recordings of the Swami on 2 LPs in a shop a couple years ago, and I've been in love with them ever since. This record would be an ideal for all those meditation junkies out there, or just people like me who dig falling asleep to things like this.

I received a copy of the Italian music magazine Rockarilla in the mail last week, and to my surprise, they gave a little blurb about my Wasted Magic In The Sound album at Archaic Horizon. 8 out of 10 too, not bad!

Thanks to Mirco for the nice words and for kindly sending me a copy of the mag. If anyone wants to read it in actual-size, just click the above image. It's in Italian though so unless you read Italian you may have some problems!

Thursday, September 20, 2007

This Summer, the consistently impressive (and influential to me) Attacknine Records started a project called The 13 Weeks Of Summer, where the aim was to release new ambient music in the form of "singles" by various artists that you could download for only 99 cents each. SSR was lucky enough to be asked several times to contribute to 13 Weeks, and since the series has just now finished, I thought I'd post some information about all the tracks we gave to them.

Milieu - Glossy Ceramic Harmonies

This track was recorded during the Eight Thousander sessions, but was left off of the record for being too long (9 minutes), as well as being more effected in post, as opposed to being completely live and improvised like the rest of the album. It's very pretty, guitar based, and would appeal to fans of Eight Thousander or Of The Apple.

VCV - Barefoot Blues

This was actually a Teenager song, originally, and Teenager-recorded versions of it exist and will probably be released on later tapes. This version was laid down in a more freeform, loose way, with an electric guitar in the garage one hot day. Ending up much longer than any Teenager track would ever be, I wasn't sure what to do with it, so I called David up and we decided that he should play some slide guitar over it and we could just make it a VCV track. So here it is...very reminiscent of our cover of Jandek's "I'm Ready", which was also recorded around the same time. Pretty and sad.

David Tagg - Nautical Dusk

David recorded this live on electric guitar and two reel-to-reels, set up in a similar fashion as Robert Fripp's "Frippertronics". There's actually a full album of material from this session, which has yet to be titled and will most likely see a release at SSR. I mastered it for him, and it turned out quite beautifully. Another example of David's wonderful way with a guitar.

VCV - Live Drone Three

This was an impromptu jam David and I played the day he arrived here with Melissa on their vacation in May. David holds down the guitar and I played bass, and there's actually a subtle beat carried on my organ's drums. Quite shoegazey, and 13 minutes long to boot. Because of the drums, we never would've included this on a VCV album, but it luckily found a proper home at Attacknine!

Brian Grainger - Tortoiseshell (Live 09-24-2006)

As the title indicates, this was recorded live in late 2006 on electric guitar and chimes. Clocking in at around half an hour, this sat around in the Brian vault for a long time before a good opportunity for it to be released finally came along.

In addition to our contributions, there's also a ton of great material there by The Surf The Sundried, The White Lodge, Manual, William Fowler Collins and others! Go check it out!

Wednesday, September 19, 2007

I just finished recording this album last night, and I thought I'd mention it here. It began with me recording material for Sun-Day, which sometimes yields more "noisier" rather than "ambient" results. Since I'm usually just as fond of the not-so-calm parts of these sessions, I wanted a place to put them, and so I hatched the idea to piece little albums out of them, if I could assemble the tracks cohesively enough. So I guess what the result became could be called "noisy Sun-Day outtakes", however since it's conception, this idea has blossomed into much more than that.

Built from these bits and pieces from the Sun-Day sessions, this is the first of three records of it's kind. Everything is live, basically me improvising with my own source material through several layers of amp /pedal distortion and various analog delays. The results are similar to my work on the tape split with Ophibre. The tracklisting is as follows:

Sunday, September 16, 2007

My newest contribution to our ongoing 3" CD-R series at SSR is One Four Nine. Here's what SSR said:

Written and performed entirely on solo electric bass, One Four Nine is a deep watery drone meditation that thickens as you progress further into it. Fattened harmonies slowly emerge from blurry chords and once again you're lulled out of reality for 21 minutes.

Saturday, September 15, 2007

That's right! Just what EVERYONE has been biting their nails for: a new Pink Space EP! (internets sarcasms)

Designed by the Dark Pink Lord to hold everyone over until the next full-length is complete. Despite what your dirty mind would no doubt imagine when you read the album title, this EP is all about cats, having their idea of a "DJ party" one frisky Caturday. So, have some cake, get your noisemakers out, and HAS A PARTAY.

While we're on the topic of compilation appearances, I don't think I got the chance to talk about this one before.

This past Summer, I contributed a track called White Smoke to a compilation called Summerlights #2 over at the longstanding EKO netlabel. It's quite a long compilation, and there's alot of beautiful ambient material throughout, so go check it out. Notables include Sonmi451, The Green Kingdom and Kenneth Kirschner.

There is a new Vhom track, Skvph Vx2, that is part of a very nice compilation of noise/ambient/industrial material at Weird And Wired, titled Fuzzy Green. This track would appeal to folks who liked my Nine Acid split with Skonflap (Wisp), as it's a total headfuck of overdistorted percussion and corrosive acid-synth lines. Other notables on the compilation are Dino Felipe, Lackluster, Bazaar and Yoursck. Check it out for free here:

The first cassette-only release at SSR is now out! Housed in David Tagg's distinct and unique printed canvas, with high-quality decals on the tape itself. Looks and feels quite lovely!

Here is what SSR had to say about the music:

Half an hour of lo-fi instrumental folk and blues guitar songs that Brian recorded as far back as 1997. All of it has been harvested from hours and hours of recordings in various states of wear, most of it on old tapes with little more than a year or a location written on the labels. The sound of Teenager largely reflects the bare-bones acoustic songwriting that has always been at the heart of all of Brian's music, yet nothing this raw and primitive has ever been released until now. The playing is untrained, but melodic and endearing in a very homemade way. Recommended listening for the onset of Autumn and slow aimless driving through the country. This is intimate music that has been steeped in the southern landscape and reaches deep from the fading histories of a poor southern boy.

These are $6.00 each, plus shipping and handling, and you can pick yours up here:

Last year around Winter, my friend Fieldtriqp and I were discussing the possibilities of an experiment. I've always loved his music, specifically his melodies, and we thought it would be an interesting project if I built an ambient record out of sampling his beatless melodic moments in Fieldtriqp songs. Files were transferred, and a good bit of the unreleased Fieldtriqp catalog was mined strictly with this album in mind. What resulted became The Fieldtriqp Reconstructions, an atmospheric take on my own and Fieldtriqp's music. Very desolate and pretty at times, despite being mostly blurred out, unintelligible drones and massive, glacial chord changes.

As usual, I made a handful of these on hand-decorated CD-Rs, each only $5.00 in my shop. For MP3 clips and order information, click here:

This is a record I did earlier this Spring, during an evening thunderstorm. With the window to my bedroom open, I set up two microphones, one as a room mic and the other in the open window, recording the storm. Both microphones were then run through double delay effects and some compression, and while the storm poured on outside, the sounds of my wooden and metal chimes on the porch played along with my improvising on various instruments inside the room. The result is Photoplay Music, a textural, lonesome listening experience that's perfect for putting in your stereo while reading a book or napping this Fall. Also great in headphones, as the double delays move around quite a bit.

I've put together a pile of them on hand-decorated CD-Rs, available only through my Milieu shop for $5.00! To listen to MP3 clips and order one, go here:

Yesterday, I was just lazing around the net like I usually do and I happened across some very nice words about my New Drugs album on a music forum somewhere. Seems like this is the first time someone who wrote about my work actually cross-referenced previous works and knew what they were talking about. Here is what they said:

As the age-old adage goes, there are some things you can count on in life, such as death and taxes. Well it looks like we can now add "a monthly new release from Milieu (Brian Grainger)" to that list. Following his Of The Apple and a handful of CD-R's from earlier this year, Grainger now gives us New Drugs For Nuclear Families Of The Seventies. For the most part, the Milieu catalog is divided into two camps: fuzzy, washy drone (Beyond The Sea Lies The Stars) and beat-driven ambient (In Hills Made Of Clouds). While Of The Apple could be seen as a true predecessor to Beyond, New Drugs clearly follows in the footsteps of the more upbeat Clouds. This is, as Grainger calls it, beat-based psychedelia. While I happen to prefer drone Milieu to IDM Milieu, there is no denying the beauty of Grainger's work. Although the word "organic" gets thrown around a lot in the post-BoC world of IDM, here the descriptor actually fits. In fact, it is this over-arching organic feel that permeates throughout every Milieu release, regardless of which camp it fits into. Any concerns of Grainger spreading himself too thin are quashed about 30 seconds into "Summer Honey". Thankfully, over-saturation does not apply to music this therapeutic.

Unfortunately, even though I registered with the forum to contact this person and say "Hey, thanks", they won't permit me to post a reply or PM anyone. So, if you wrote this, please get in touch!

This will be where I announce news and updates on all things Brian Grainger from now on. As I'm sure most of you probably noticed, the Milieu site tends to sit in disrepair for long periods of time, devoid of any updates, and that's simply because I'm usually too busy to sit down and get tangled up in HTML just so the site remains current. Blogs are easier, and this one looks just clean-cut and effective enough to serve my purposes.

About Me

I make a lot of music, I help run a couple great record labels, I'm happily married, I'm better at school than I used to be, I'm half English and half Italian, I really love food, I'm named after my father's favorite Rolling Stones.